SMS improves communications for the Deaf

Up until the beginning of the twentieth century, the island of Martha’s
Vineyard, off the east coast of the USA, had twenty times more Deaf inhabitants
for its population size than the rest of the country. But the islanders didn’t
consider this hereditary Deafness a disability because the entire community,
both hearing and Deaf, were proficient in sign language and this removed any
communication barriers and made being Deaf a non-issue.

A 2004 research paper, Everyone Here Speaks TXT: Deaf people Using SMS in
Australia and the Rest of the World, by Mary and Des Power, predicted that SMS
has a similar ability to improve communications between Deaf communities, and
wondered whether this would extend to relationships with hearing people.

Six years later headway has been made in some countries - with organisations
such as the Child Africa International School in Uganda using SMS to teach Deaf
children alongside hearing children - but there is still some work to do in
South Africa.

Khulekani Trevor Ngcobo, programme manager at South African National Deaf
Association (SANDA), agrees with this opinion. According to Ngcobo, SMS has
definitely improved his communication with both Deaf and hearing communities.
But it has yet to enable the Deaf community to better access businesses and
services to its full potential.

Another notable gap is the lack of SMS communication channels to emergency
services such as roadside assistance or insurance hotlines, which would be
enormously beneficial to Deaf people.

It makes sense that so many Deaf people have adopted SMS as a preferred
communications channel around the world. It is text-based, easy to use,
affordable and is mobile. The vibrating function of the handset alerts the user
about a message. Unlike other technology designed specifically for Deaf people,
such as teletypewriters (TTY), it does not require each party to have bespoke
equipment or rely on an expensive, time-intensive and intrusive intermediary to
translate messages back and forth.

In fact, the Deaf community is simply following the global trend preferring
SMS. Figures released recently by mobile maven Tomi Ahonen show that SMS is the
most widely used data application on the planet, with 53% of the total world’s
population and 78% of the world’s mobile phone users texting. Around the world,
people are increasingly conversing using SMS, and making fewer and fewer voice
calls, particularly in the youth market. It is not unusual for people to check
their SMS throughout social engagements, and indeed to SMS friends in the same
room, whether or not they are hearing or Deaf.

According to Ngcobo, who sends about 500 SMS a month, he uses SMS both socially
and for business purposes to communicate with people and to get information.
Thanks to SMS, he has a bigger social and business network and has had text
conversations with people who haven’t known he is Deaf.

He says that he is seeing business use of SMS increasing, and that account
payment reminders and banking services are particularly useful. But there is
room for improvement when it comes to businesses engaging with Deaf people via
SMS.

“A Deaf person’s greatest problem is not simply that he or she cannot hear, but
that the lack of hearing is socially isolating,” wrote Nora Ellan Groce in her
book Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language, about the Martha’s Vineyard community.

Add to this the importance of “weak” connections, that loose network you turn
to when you are job-hunting or need an opinion on a holiday destination, for
instance, and that is so important in providing an alternative point of view to
prevent a group becoming too insular. SMS has been a contributor to Deaf people
being able to form “weak” relations as it expands their communication from
face-to-face engagements only.

SANDA is actively lobbying the mobile service providers to provide
Deaf-specific services and it is possible to opt for SMS-only pricing packages
in South Africa. Specifically business users and emergency services could offer
more sophisticated SMS-based communication channels which no doubt would be
rapidly taken up by hearing customers as well, given the popularity of SMS.

In addition, a lot could be done in terms of handset design to improve the SMS
inbox, allowing messages to be searched, better delivery reports and better
contact management.

The good news is though, that with the rise and rise of popularity of SMS, both
Deaf and hearing users will both drive and benefit from these advances. And
ultimately SMS has the potential to greatly reduce the social disability of
being Deaf.